I started this set years ago. I wanted an Old Testament and New Testament set that told a grand story. The Israel block was theme-centric and focused on a span of years all relating to Israel becoming a nation. For this set I wanted to challenge myself to go outside of a few brigades and a specific time period. As the set developed, I found myself spreading themes too thin which took away from other themes in the set. We recalibrated and focused on what still needed help in the game that also told the story which we were trying to tell.
So what story are we trying to tell? This set, also known as Times to Come, starts in the book of Daniel and then dives into apocalyptic prophecies. So much of the book of Daniel is well known in Christian history with the lion’s den, the idol of Nebuchadnezzar and the fiery furnace, but those are just a few chapters of Daniel. There’s so much more to the rest of Daniel.
Chris Fachman and I originally spoke about a “times” block that would represent past, present and future times. We wanted to start with Daniel to show past times and hint at future times, then show present times in the second set and finally round out the last set with how days will look according to scripture during Christ’s second return.
Ultimately, the story became hard to follow, and the middle set felt forced. We pushed some awesome abilities into a future block and focused on Daniel and other end prophecies. Original concept cards of Times to Come were trying to manipulate time in the game by interacting with phases like we have never done before. Going “back” to other phases, skipping phases, skipping phases for benefits and redoing phases.
As awesome as it sounds, it created extremely complex situations and added immense amounts of time to the game, go figure. I didn’t even pitch most of the ideas to the team. However, some ideas turned into amazing concepts, and we brought them into this set, but now is not the time for those cards.
We know Times to Come has the book of Daniel and apocalyptic prophecies, but what does that mean? Times to Come will cover the entire book of Daniel while encapsulating “apocalyptic” prophets. Before you get too excited, apocalyptic is not a new identifier (although I tried), but it just became too focused and clunky. I guess I just love long identifiers. We used previous identifiers for prophets, such as major and minor and gave them more playability.
One of my main goals for the last few years is to bring together themes and round out themes. Rotation was great for the game, but some themes have been hit harder than others. I want to focus on those themes that lost a lot and could use focal points in sets, both offensively and defensively. My vision is to have a meta that you can play whatever evil and good theme you want and build a competitive deck out of cards from your favorite book or story from the Bible. You can also pair strategies together, like we saw with Joshua and thieves. Being able to play what you want and still be competitive is a dream of mine. Now, being competitive has different meanings for different people and I’m still trying to make sure all themes are healthy and I’m not always going to accomplish this, but I will try my best and I will continue to learn and grow each set.
As I’ve done in the past, the sneak peek article is going to talk about either the good brigades or the evil brigades and some neutral or support cards. In my previous Redemption persona articles, I spoiled an evil Daniel card, a white Daniel card and a green Isaiah card. For the rest of this article, we’re going to reveal the good themes for this set. We already know that it’s Daniel and prophets, so what else is in the set other than white and green? We’re bringing in a lot of silver!
Silver
Old Testament silver can be played on its own or you can pair it with their respective theme. Daniel angels, Isaiah angels, Ezekiel angels and Zechariah angels are all flying into the mix. I know one person’s going to be happy with this set. Honestly, Eman and Card Game Fanatic should be ecstatic with this set.
Silver will play a heavy support role for the prophets in Times to Come. Much of God‘s message came from the angels to the prophets or prophets who saw angels. I wanted to keep that same feel in this set and really show that angels are supporting the prophets while still thinking of deck builders and competitiveness like I mentioned earlier. Players are going to be able to play silver in a multitude of ways. They can mix and match with a major prophet, focus on two major prophets with all the supporting cast of each, or just play mono-silver with crazy bands and even a strong good Enhancement.
Angels are going to bring whatever prophets you want together, and each theme will have its own unique playstyle. The Isaiah stuff was originally designed to be angels flying out of the deck and having abilities when they come into play. Although it sounds cool, it’s a lot of words on a card for minimal gain and then you’re forced to play a Hero differently. It just wasn’t functional and what I’ve learned over the years is no matter how cool an ability is, if it’s not functional, it doesn’t matter. Isaiah still gets abilities coming out of the deck, but they influence the battle outside of the battle. They can bring characters out of the deck in a different way, and they can interact with the battle differently than other themes.
This card went through considerable changes during testing but kept the same intent overall. We originally had the current title, then tried to change it to be a different Isaiah angel, and that just didn’t work, so we brought this title back. This card used to have “If played from deck (or attacking), look at the top 7 cards of deck: Take up to 1 Isaiah card.” The ‘played from deck’ was cool as you can “swap out” Isaiah angels, but the taking of an Isaiah card was horrible.
We opened up this card to a simple top 7 look and take, but the card still felt lackluster. The scripture talks about the angel of His presence saving others. I brought in a protection ability that allows for this angel to “save” Heroes in battle. The opponent will have to use regardless of protect abilities or target this Hero against a big Isaiah band or any sort of high numbered Isaiah Heroes.
Prophets
I’m very excited for green and silver in the set. I know we just had O.T. prophets in Israel’s Inheritance, we’re going to have overlap in sets and that’s okay. When it came down to telling the story through a set it made sense to bring in the prophets and their respective angels. We did want to make O.T. prophets have their own feel and give players the ability to have minor and major prophet interaction. Instead of creating a new apocalyptic identifier, we can use what we have in minor and major that’s perfectly defined.
Initially, I tried to show each prophetic book differently and I hope I achieved that, but there were a couple things that I had to adjust a little since they weren’t functional. The Ezekiel theme will focus on top decking, and they’ll be looking at different things and ways to top deck. They can obliterate your territory, your hand, your reserve and really mess with what you have and stop evil before it’s even played, which is one of greens main strategies.
We already saw an Isaiah card and touched on their theme a bit. Overall, green is trying to get rid of evil before it’s played, but how do you make that different in each theme? Zachariah gets a whole new look with all new angels, and they love to interact with each other, and since Zachariah was a minor prophet he also interacts with other minor prophets. There’s more than that though, but I don’t want to give away too much of the set as I tend to get excited and talk too much (who would’ve thought). I will say there’s going to be minor and major prophets with a whole lot of silver support.
Green and silver variants were the most difficult to build decks for, but the most fun to play. One of the most difficult Heroes to test was Jeremiah. There were times when I didn’t think he was even going to be printed. We did have to take off the dual brigade for multiple reasons. The first reason being he was simply too strong with green, and clay and the second reason is that we’re making a concerted effort to not just slap brigades on cards. From a design standpoint it makes sense (and I think it’s cool), if there’s a clay Jeremiah that works with O.T. priests and a green Jeremiah that works with O.T. prophets. Without further due, may I introduce to you, Jeremiah, the Weeper.
It’s tough to make a Jeremiah that can stand up to the power level of Jeremiah from Prophecies of Christ and I wonder if we achieved or overachieved our goal of making a playable Jeremiah that’s different from the PoC version.
Jeremiah was known for crying a lot. I wanted to tie that into his title and ability. His “while alone” represents the fact that Jeremiah never married. He also paralyzes Evil Characters with a strength of 5 or less. This is a different way to stop evil from entering battle, which is what green is trying to do: get rid of evil before it’s played or not let it come in at all. Strength five or less is because Jeremiah was the prophet during five different kings.
Using Enhancements from Reserve is completely new and allows you to use your Reserve as if it’s your hand. Banding is all the rave right now, even on defense people are banding everywhere. To get a strong solo Hero it needs to have a good pay off. Maybe this one’s too strong. It was tough to test because I often went in with a big band of angels and prophets that I just left Jeremiah crying in the corner. When I made a concerted effort to attack with him I started seeing a lot of awesome combos. So much so we changed a card to have a payoff if it is played from Reserve and of course the card is from Jeremiah.
Daniel
I’ve rambled on about prophets and angels, but the bulk of this set is about Daniel, so let’s look at a good Daniel card. This next card should get the brainwaves moving to a card previously spoiled. What if everyone can’t get Daniel meek Lost Souls? No worries, play whatever Lost Souls you want and just create them yourself!
The Fortress will create Daniel 2:44 meek Lost Souls and negate others, so you can use “setup” Lost Souls and not worry about them being negated later. This card changed a little during testing and the one and only John Earley commented on it. We joke that John has one great idea a year and this was it. This card created a Lost Soul, but it required a Lost Soul token to be in their territory to negate. Now you just negate Lost Souls as soon as this is in play if you are playing Daniel Lost Souls, meek or *edited by R.O.S.E.S.*
We talked about how slow this card was, shoutout to Gabe, and could not find a good feeling for it. John took one look at it and said, “What if we just took off the needing a token in their territory?” Brilliant! Now you just slap this down and start negating Lost Souls, theoretically, all while creating consistent soul generation each turn. Daniel offenses have traditionally had a tough time dealing with soul drought, so this should help, but also do more than that. Negating Lost Souls is very strong. We essentially create a by the numbers Lost Soul in a Fortress for Daniel while using meek Lost Souls, now if Daniel has some other Lost Souls in this set, then this Fortress could get a very strong buff.
Conclusion
There it is! The set title and 3 more spoilers! As of writing this, I am ten days away from my wedding! I will have one more article done before then, with God’s help and my fiancée being busy planning things that I should probably help with.
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